The present invention relates to the field of motor vehicles, and more particularly relates to a combination motor vehicle system of a basically new configuration.
In the use of modern family cars, it is very usual for such a car to be operated with one or at the most two people riding therein, along with a small amount of luggage which is being carried. That is to say, although the normal passenger car of today is able comfortably to carry four or five people and quite a lot of luggage, in practice according to modern lifestyles such a four seater passenger car is not usually used to its full capacity. In particular, during the everyday life of the average nuclear family, the principal day to day uses of a passenger car are either for a wage earning member of the family to commute to and fro between home and office, or for a home making member of the family to undertake local errands such as shopping, taking children to and from school, and the like. In both of these operational modes, the full capacity of the average modern passenger car is not used.
However, of course, from the point of view of family togetherness and fun, the not so frequently used mode of operation of a modern family car, in which it is used to carry all the family members, such as the spouses and their children for a weekend outing or the like, is very important, although this operational mode in fact may not account for a high proportion of the actual distance and time the vehicle is used. It would be quite unacceptable for the modern family car not to possess such a high capacity potential, although this potential is not in fact used very often. Since a normal passenger vehicle such as a car which is capable of carrying four or five persons and a fair quantity of luggage, i.e. which is capable of comfortably transporting the average family, necessarily must be constructed with quite a large and heavy body, and accordingly requires an engine of a suitably high power output to move this body, the problem has arisen that, during the abovementioned habitual under capacity use of such a car, a considerable amount of fuel is wasted.
Further, such a full size passenger car is again, according to the abovementioned concept of potential to handle the maximum possible likely load, typically constructed in such a fashion that it is able to operate for extended periods at high road speeds, such as during expressway driving. However, again, in practical use, this expressway operating capacity is not very often required, especially during commuting or during short local shopping trips.
A further cause of waste and unnecessary expense in the present life style of many families is due to the fact that several road vehicles such as passenger cars are often provided for the different members of the family. For example, in the usual case when one member of the family commutes to and fro between home and work daily, while another member of the family remains in or in the general vicinity of the home in order to supervise the children or the like, the requirement has arisen for each of these family members to be in possession of his or her own car, and according to this two car ownership by the average family has become very common in the developed world. Especially nowadays, as urban sprawl progresses, many new suburban or so called satellite developments are being constructed in areas where public transport facilities are poor or nonexistent, and in such areas the provision of at least two cars for the average family has become almost a necessity. It is also the case that in many regions of the world public transport facilities are being contracted in their size and in the frequency of their operations, and accordingly, again, the tendency towards multi car ownership in the average family has been increasing. Further, the general rise in income levels of the population has also contributed to this tendency.
However, since it has heretofore been the case that each of the multiple vehicles owned by a multi car family is a full size car, the aforesaid energy wastage due to under capacity operation of these cars, and the amount of renewable and non renewable resources such as steel, glass, rubber, and the like, employed in the production and maintenance of these multiple full size cars, have a tendency to become very excessive. Also, even with the present high income levels in developed areas of the world, the cost of maintaining and operating two separate full sized cars is often quite a burden for the average middle class family.